


Hidden Faces

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Broken Dream, Brother and Sister - Freeform, Disguise, Family, Gen, Heroism, Hurt and comfort, stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roald comforts Kally after she learns she cannot train as a knight.





	Hidden Faces

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat of a companion piece to "Two of a Kind" but can be enjoyed separately.

Hidden Faces

“It was a broken dream right from the start that I could be a page.” Kally wept her grief and pounded her rage into her knee with a balled fist. She had fled to Roald’s room to show the true face that she had hidden behind distant politeness when Papa told her that she couldn’t be a page because then she wouldn’t be able to do her ultimate duty to Tortall: make a good marriage to a foreign ruler. She had seen Roald hide his emotions behind a courteous mask all her life, but she had never attempted to do the same. She had hoped it would cushion her grief to hide her pain, but instead it had only made her feel it more acutely. “Papa must have known for years that I couldn’t train as a page, but he didn’t tell me. Instead he let me go on believing that I could be a page only to dash my dream at the last moment. It was cruel.” 

Kally understood that Papa hated to disappoint his children and that he was only ever cruel to be kind, but she didn’t want to hear that from herself or from Roald. 

Roald must have sensed that, because he hugged her and whispered into her ear, “Remember the story of how Sir Alanna became a knight by disguising herself as her twin brother?” 

“It’s not a story.” Kally sniffled into his shoulder. She and Roald had grown up begging Sir Alanna to tell them all her adventures, and what had drawn Kally to those accounts of heroism was that they were all true unlike the stories the nursemaids told her at bedtime. She had spent her childhood idolizing warrior women like Sir Alanna and her mother. It hurt more than she could have imagined to realize that she would never be a warrior sharing tales of her quests with little girls. She would be a princess and then a queen or an empress because that was what she was born to be. “It’s the truth.” 

“Maybe it could be true for you too.” Roald patted her back as if she were an innocent five-year-old instead of a ten-year-old whose hopes had been crushed. “We used to be able to pass for twins if you wore a shirt and breeches and we both hid our hair under hats. Only Mama and Papa could tell us apart.” 

“Would you wear a dress and learn to be a lady while I trained as a knight?” Kally laughed almost hysterically at the absurdity of the notion, which no doubt was what Roald had intended. She was sure that she was the only one that he revealed this secret sense of humor. 

“I’d do anything for my little sister.” Roald’s words were serious but there was a twinkle of mischief in his gaze. 

“It wouldn’t work. Your shoulders are too broad now.” Kally nudged his shoulders to emphasize this point. “Besides my mouth is too big. I wouldn’t be able to stop it from questioning Lord Wyldon’s authority when he spoke like a conservative stick-in-the-swamp.” 

Papa insisted that Lord Wyldon was a great commander and hero of the realm that must be treated with respect for his faithful service to the Crown, but Kally hated him for the way his grim lips turned into a faint frown whenever the Queen’s Riders rode past to arrest bandits and fight immortals. He might have saved her siblings from hurrocks in the nursery, but she would never forgive his scorn for the women she considered her true heroes. 

“No, you wouldn’t.” Roald gave Kally’s nose a teasing tweak. “You’d scandalize Lord Wyldon and throw the pages’ wing into chaos.” 

“Maybe I’m not cut out to be a page.” Kally’s smile was small but brave, and she thought that she had never been so much of a warrior as when she surrendered that dream to do her duty. “A page can’t question anything, but a princess and a queen or empress can question everything.” 

There had to be freedoms in being a princess and then a queen or empress that there wasn’t in being a page or warrior, she told herself. Pages and warriors had to obey orders, while princess, queens, and empresses gave commands. It was on behalf of the princesses, queens, and empresses that the heroes fought. That would have to be enough for Kally, who had always wanted to be the hero, not the princess, in every fairy tale she had ever heard.


End file.
